Battlestar Galactica Deadlock Review (golan)
I definitely like the concept but not the end result...
As a paying customer, the hours actually played (since the number is obviously over inflated, as by the time I have reached 50h I was barely at turn 26-28 of the first campaign) are justified by the value of the concept but at the same time I am disappointed in my purchase because the producer of this service didn't saw fit to give it a little bit more polish after it saw it's immense success.
As a harcore gamer the negative review is also justified by the concept not being pushed to a more decent state.
For example, there are no mods because the "IP holder doesn't like them" - OK, that's an excuse, how about making some features configurable so we don't need mods then? As a harcore player of the strategy genre and sci-fi titles I can't help but to wonder if it was so hard to add it in the game files or in an editor the option to modify a specific ship to have more squadrons deployable at the same time, more ordinance bays, default counter-measures not taking a missile slot (which is limited as it is), etc, etc... very simple stuff that the game already needs to function and it's extremely basic programming: reading configuration parameters from a text file or a database format and making the game run on the basis of such parameters.
As for completely interesting features that should have been better: i propose HACKING as a more involved mini-game as a proposal of a feature that could have been added with DLCs considering the success of the game. It's obviously a core concept in the lore and electronic hacking is poorly covered in sci-fi in general. If they pushed the envelope a bit more (not just with mechanics specific to XCOM Enemy Unkown), then I would have had to flip my review... but all things considered I don't think veteran gamers should recommend this even if they enjoy parts of it and have decided to support the developer anyway.
Now, if you don't mind getting screwed over as a customer with your purchase of a FULL title (considering all or most DLCs) and you just have disposable 60-80 euros/dollars and you just want to try out novel ideas that other studios have also failed to explore properly, then sure, you shouldn't avoid this. But a review really needs to consider the value proposition of these release, doesn't it?